Privilege, Pain and the Tragedy of Triumphalism

Lisa Spencer5 Comments

man standing on rockThis is a composite of various thoughts that have been swirling around my head for the past few days. I’ve been in a somewhat disconcerted state, continuing to reel from issues that plague my soul, wanting relief and wrestling with God. The persistent tug of war between despair and hopeful expectation of God’s working all things out gets exhausting at times. Just when peace settles in something comes across my radar that upsets the apple cart, so to speak. Honestly, I’ve gone through a period of feeling abandoned by God and feeling left to my own devices to figure it out. Well of course that is NOT the reality but at times I have trouble convincing my humanity of that. Thank God for the promises of his word.

When I saw this clip from Tullian Tchividjian, it so resonated with some of the things that bothered me regarding how pain and suffering is treated not only in our corporate gatherings but also the wrestling matches with ourselves individually.

What he speaks to is something I’ve encountered throughout my Christian life, the need to look victorious in spite of how circumstances are warring against our soul. Because after all, doesn’t Paul say that we are more than conquerors? Unfortunately, I fell into this mindset at a time when I was taking a pounding from life and detached from how certain realities in my life had impacted me. Because of the Charismatic teaching that I had embraced, there was this philosophy of warring though the difficulties and engaging in radical praise. Be triumphant even when you don’t feel like it. Be strong, when you are weak. The problem with that mindset is that it doesn’t allow a realistic evaluation and may encourage dishonesty in our spiritual walk. Continue reading →

Dear Church, Do You Know Who I Really Am?

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Questionmark-faceThe following is a compelling guest post from Anonymous, who asked for the identity to not be revealed. I think this is a fitting follow up to my conundrums post.

Dear Church,

I hear everyone talking about me.  Always debating about what to do with me.  Ferociously drawing lines in the sand.  Articles, blogs, political debate.  Movie and pop stars eagerly rally around me and throw money at my trendy plight.  To them I am another Darfur, an earthquake in Haiti, the Invisible Children.  The US president has used me as a political move to gain support; a pawn in his agenda for reelection, for power.  My former denomination (amongst others) split over me, misunderstanding their cause.  You say that you support me, but do you?  Do you even know me?

I lived a decade in the most decadent of ways: proud and lonely and lost.  Drug use was a lifestyle, a way to cope, a way to survive in a world that I knew I didn’t belong to.  It lulled my feelings to a quiet hum.  Hushed my self-control but, ironically, never the remorse.  I allowed my body to be used in ways that now make me blush.  Men, women, it didn’t matter.  I considered it all an ‘experience’.[i]  To top it all off, I aborted the evidence of my shameless lifestyle.  More than once.

I never imagined the price that I would pay for such indulgence.  Never knew that it would interfere with a marriage that I once had no hope for.  Never knew that it would keep me a safe distance away from friends.  From you.  I still cannot fathom how our Savior could pay the cost, but I accept it.[ii]  He paid the price of death so that I would be seen as pure and innocent to the Father.  Something that we all know I am not.  But that is how God sees me.  How do you? Continue reading →

A Writer’s Quest to Pop the Pollyanna Puffycloud Bubble

Lisa Spencer1 Comment

blue sky-and-cloudI got into in interesting discussion on my Facebook page over this piece posted by the Daily Examiner in the UK. The piece is a chilling expose of the extreme feminism and maternal neglect of famed Color Purple author Alice Walker. The piece was based on an interview with daughter Rebecca Walker who recounted some sordid details regarding her mother’s behavior and the impact that it had on her growing up. But apparently, the interviewer took some liberties in truth telling that turned the piece into tabloid sensationalism. The Grio posted this interview where Walker clarifies that she never meant it in the way it was presented. I especially found this section of the interview compelling:

 When piece went viral, it was hard. I had not said a lot of what was in the article, a lot of it didn’t come from the interview, but they put my name on it as if I had written it and added their own energy to it. It was very complex. All of my work is revealing; my books, but it’s different because I can control the way the message goes out. It’s a question of how to handle being so vulnerable and truthful about your experiences without having to wake up the next morning and hide under the covers. It’s hard to find that boundary. How much is necessary to divulge. When I first handed in Black White and Jewish, there was whole first section that read, “I’m writing this book because I want to be known. I want someone in this life to know what I feel and who I am.” I ended up cutting that section [laughing] but I think that a lot of my work thus far has been about wanting to be known, wanting to connect, wanting to be seen, not wanting to hold up a veil, wanting to be real, wanting to share — needing to. If I hadn’t written Black White and Jewish, I would have lost my mind. I had to say those things. I had to say I was having sex way too young and I had an abortion, and that I had my race issues; all that. I needed to get it out of me.

Well, here’s the interesting aspect of the whole thing. These events really happened and they absolutely had an impact on her. But you can hear the struggle in her words of wanting to write out of experiences but at the same time not coming across as an injured or malicious person. Experience is fuel to a writer that gives the words life and meaning.  But writing out of experience also means sharing it. That’s hard when the experience isn’t pretty. So it causes this tenacious dilemma. Continue reading →

Cracking the Door to 2013

Lisa Spencer3 Comments

door_ajarHave you ever entered a room where you flung the door open? No doubt, there is an enthusiasm and hopeful anticipation about what is beyond that door. We fling the door open because we are anxious to get there, most likely because there is something positive worth all the energy.

Conversely, cracking the door portrays a hesitancy and caution. Uncertainty of expectations produces a slow glimpse. Maybe there’s something there but not knowing what may be in store. Just a little peak to see if it’s worth opening to enter. Slow. Uncertain. Cautious. Questioning.

As 2012 draws to a close, I find myself cracking the door to 2013. Well of course I have no control over the entrance because whether I like it or not, the new year will begin. There’s nothing magical about the flip of a calendar. But each new year does bring with it hope – hope for change, hope for something better, hope for answered prayers.

I would love to swing the door open and embrace the new year. But as I reflect back over the past year, the reflection causes the year to bleed into the past few years – 4 to be exact since I moved to Dallas to go to seminary. It’s been a trying time of exposing, pruning, purging and barrenness. Trying beyond my wildest imagination. It’s exposed areas of my life where I long for restoration and change. A number of prayers, personal prayers have gone unanswered. The disappointment has been discouraging at times and breeds caution because disappointment has a way of strangling hope and tempering expectation. I don’t know if that’s good or bad but it is what it is. Continue reading →

My Wish for the Contemporary Evangelical Church

Lisa Spencer8 Comments

Laura over at Enough Light posted her 2012 top posts and highlighted this gem of a post, Does Your Church Make People Jump Through Hoops? Stop it!. She writes on a very important topic – the life and health of the church. I would encourage you to read it. The thrust of the argument is how newcomers are expected to jump through hoops to get on board. Now, no church or its leadership will confess to this directly. But it does come out in subtle ways or maybe not so subtle.  The goal is to bring people on board. So the visitor is expected to join the body. Once officially joined, there is the expectation of participation. The participation of course, should contribute to the vision and mission of what that local assemblies’ leadership has prescribed for the church to do. Therefore, when individuals come into the fold, the way they fit in is to do as prescribed. In this scenario the visitor/newcomer is seen as a commodity to make the church strong rather than a vital member of the body based on their faith.

I believe this to be a common scenario in today’s contemporary evangelical church, particularly independent, non-denominational churches. But there is something under the hood that motivates this type of corporate structure where people only feel valuable according to what they do, whether it be to join this or that ministry or small group or other defined obligations. Here’s what I think is going on. The contemporary church by and large has operated under the premise of what they do as opposed to who they are. Put differently, the contemporary church has defined itself by what it does instead of who it is, the body of Christ united together to grow itself up together in love (Ephesians 4:16). Of course there are exceptions. But the more emphasis that is placed on the definition of the church being what it does, the more will be expected of individual members to jump on board in order to fulfill the church’s definition. Continue reading →